US to offer proper regulatory laws for self-driving cars in the next few months

As all the companies involved in the self-driving race are urging the US regulators to give proper guidance to speed up the development of related technologies, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told Blomberg that a proper regulatory plan is due within months.

Companies such as Google or General Motors are stumbling on safety rules that are hampering autonomous testing on public roads, thus inevitably delaying the deployment of such cars. California, as an example, does not want to allow vehicles that don’t have a licensed driver and human controls to go out on state’s streets. The head of Google’s self-driving car project stated in front of the US Congress two weeks ago that legislators should grant new authority to the US Transportation Department to help get fully autonomous vehicles on the road.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in January the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would write guidelines for self-driving cars within six months. He recently reiterated to Bloomberg that specific procedures would be issued within the next few months. Foxx admitted the regulatory laws cannot keep up with the fast development pace of such technologies, adding that he truly believes in the future of self-driving cars, even if it’s unrealistic to expect too much from them too quickly.

The NHTSA said it would hold some public meetings this spring to gather input for those guidelines, which it hopes to release in July. Foxx has separately proposed nearly 4 billion dollars over 10 years for a pilot programs to test connected vehicle systems in designated corridors throughout the country.